Basmati Rice BAG - Packaging Fail

We.  Love.  Rice.

We eat a boatload of it.  People who swear off rice as part of their diet always amaze me.  When they talk about cutting out rice, in my head I am thinking, "But whyyyy?  And HOW???".  Let's just say, if you and I were on the same team in Survivor, you would have to guard the rice pile...

And we think Trader Joe's Basmati Rice is a great deal and tastes awesome.  Why, in the original review of it we gave it an almost perfect score - it got a 4.5 ( link to review here ).

A bowl of rice, one of life's simple pleasures.

But when we ate it last night we were once again reminded of the goofy, incomprehensible PACKAGING of this stuff.  Check it out:

When full, it was very dangerous to open and handle this bag!  This photo is taken after some has been used.
See how the opening is like a third of the way down the bag?  WHY???

WHO DOES THAT?  Who puts the opening to a RICE BAG, remember, rice is made up of teeny tiny bits that like to jump around - who puts the opening part-way down the package??  Trader Joe's, that's who!  Yes, instead of opening at the TOP, their Basmati opens part-way down the front.  It is downright bizarre.

Poor David, working hard to try and pour rice out of this ridiculous bag without spilling any.

So, Trader Joe's, what say you?  Certainly we cannot be the only shoppers who are confounded by this!  Readers, have you noticed this oddity?  Let's speak up!  Let's make signs!  Let's have a protest!!  Let's make a petition!!!  (Can you tell the current political climate has gotten me worked up?)  Seriously though, I just want to understand the reasoning behind this odd packaging choice.

The product still ranks a 4.5 rating, but the bag gets a 1.

Day 62 - Embrace Your Inner Bean

My friend Heidi got these "Embrace Your Inner Bean" snacks on a shopping trip we recently went on together to the Overland Park, KS Trader Joe’s.  We were hungry, so when we jumped in the car we opened them and dug in.

No bueno.

They LOOK cute, don't they?  

The TEXTURE is the biggest problem with this little snack stick.  It is too Styrofoam-y.  They feel like little sticks of Styrofoam dipped in some spices.  But not MANY spices, because they really don’t taste much.  They just feel weird on your tongue.

What we figured out they ARE good for is to serve as little (quasi) edible chopsticks to dip into tzatziki and lift it to your mouth!!  We just kept piling on the tzatziki and shoveling it in with these “Delightfully Crunchy Baked Black Bean Snacks” (the package’s words, not mine).  The package says a serving size is “about 22” little black bean snacks – I can’t imagine eating that much Styrofoam. 

22 pieces of these would be a LOT to ingest...  They are not big, but they are a weird texture...

Overall impression – skip the black bean snacks and just get the tzatziki.  J

Price - $1.49

Rating – 1